Memories of the 40s -Magic Times!

Muriel Wells

Joe, you transported me to that time in our past that always
seem to have been surrounded by a golden glow! Oh, happy days! (A Magical World)

Did the sun always shine? It seemed to, although I remember
a severe thunderstorm in the summer of 1937 in which a torrential
downpour flooded the area where Silverton Road joined Crabmill Lane.

I had been up at Grandma Lucas's for the day to keep our house
quiet as my sister was suffering from a severe attack of measles.
I arrived home after this spectacular storm to find dogs swimming
near to my home---and it was itself unfamiliar, being dim and
gloomy as the curtains were drawn. The patient was experiencing
the extreme sensitivity to light, which may accompany the disease.

But on the whole the summer days were hot and sunny, with cotton
frocks coming out to co-incide with Sunday School festivities and the
Whit Walk.

Unfortunately Paradise, (yes, that really was its name!), didn't have
any little fields and waste areas close to my home, so is it any wonder
that the canal drew so many small folk to play on the towpath and
scramble up and down the steep banks where it was lower than the
surrounding roads and habitations? The mirror calm waters frightened
me as I could feel their magnetic draw---and I was a non-swimmer!

My sister and her friends had no such inhibitions and I was forever
dragging her onto an area of "terra, very firma", before our mother
found out! I had a hard time of it as she had no fears and was very
daring. Up and down they would race, or chase along the path,
inches from a potentially watery grave! I "died a thousand deaths"
on their behalf, but I am glad to say they came to no harm.

Our games had, perforce, to take place in the streets and entries
of our neighbourhood. Maybe you would be passing by as we issued
forth from a back entry dressed in an assortment of cast off adult
clothing, clopping along in shoes miles too big, as we enacted
one of life's dramas---weddings were a favourite! Refreshment was
partaken by many, seated on the curbside with feet in the gutter-----
dripping and HP sauce was a favourite of the Ludford girls. Sadly
our pleas were unheeded and Joyce and I were never given this
gourmet fare---or allowed to sit and eat on the roadside.

The only safe patch of grass within cooee was a tiny pocket-
handkerchief of a park, on the Stoney Stanton Road next to the Navigation
Bridge. The grass was mostly worn off, and it boasted a few swings,
a see-saw, a merry-go-round and a sandpit. It was here that my sister
nearly severed her little toe on a concealed spade, necessitating a
rapid return home, leaving a bloody trail to mark our passage!

Further away was Foleshill recreation ground, a useful sized area
much frequented by us. Edgewick Junior School used this area, for
playing field activities too. On one memorable day---memorable
because I ended up with a very sore bottom, and no tea, we walked
there to play! I was pushing little Roy in a pushchair. The others
scampered off to the swings and roundabouts, and I was left to stand
and watch. Eventually tiring of this I asked my sister to mind the pushchair
so that I could have a swing. Imagine my horror, when having "worked"
myself up I found myself heading for my small toddler brother! Because
he had bawled my sister had let him out of the pushchair! Bang---that
was Roy bowled over! Imagine my shock and fright! I was convinced that
I had killed him. He was bleeding copiously from a cut under his chin
so we all raced home as fast as we could go. I pushed past a neighbour
who was intent on stopping our progress---and it was this that earned
me my punishment! Luckily the wound wasn't as bad as it appeared
once the blood was removed.

Mum was a country lover and did make time to take us on picnics,
prewar, with me walking and Joyce in the pushchair. The distance was
only a mile or two, but in those days fields were not too far away and
there were also small rural pockets trapped within the suburbs. One
was the Black Pad, which was reached from Lockhurst Lane via a
broad alley. Traversing this we saw machinery as we passed open
factory doors and the ground trembled from the reverberating crash of
the Drop Hammer. Then to cross the railway line by the lattice iron
footbridge---and there was the green space as far a we could see.

Here we raced around, picked daisies, dandelions; and with the
buttercups tested ourselves to see who liked butter! Sticky and hot
we called at Grandma's on our way home clutching our rapidly wilting
bouquets. Our picnic repast always included some of Mum's little fruit
buns made from a Bero Flour recipe and homemade cordial.

A longer walk, in a different direction took us to the Miller's
Brook, and as the back of Courthouse Green was still real country, this was a
delightful experience. It was very popular with the locals. Like all
children we loved fishing for tiddlers, collecting frogspawn and finding
tasselly hazel catkins or furry pussy willow ones in season. This was
the era when the Rag and Bone man came around the houses and in
exchange for cast-off clothes (rags), we were given a goldfish. Poor
things didn't last long if the household had nothing larger than a jam jar.
The same fate awaited the tiddlers! Frog Spawn seemed hardier, and a
few attained agility and release! Sadly our sylvan retreats are now lost
forever, as the city expanded.

In the 40s we were old enough to take ourselves further afield and
had delightful times in the Bluebell Woods or adventures on the red
rocky outcrop of Corley Rocks. Magic times! Thinking about it all, it is
remarkable that we were all so safe and no-one worried about us for
hours. Traffic was less dense to be sure, but stranger-danger still had
to be invented.

Joe, I do envy you your green haven in which your imagination could
run riot. Still, having only the streets didn't hamper out imaginations or
our games. I clearly remember running down Silverton Road one day,
returning from the Saturday Children's session at the Carlton. It had
been a Tarzan film and in my mind I was freely swinging from the
trees on a length of liana! Amusing ---given that I never showed any
gymnastic prowess and couldn't climb or stay on a rope, in gym a few
years later! Infact I think that it was "monkeys" like me who led the
way down from the trees and so advanced "man" along the road to
civilisation. Not because of superior brainpower and reasoning, but
simply because they couldn't manage to stay up there!